The invention is generally directed to a protective garment for protecting at least the wearer's hand and in particular to a glove for protecting at least the wearer's hand from injury while providing significant flexibility.
A variety of pursuits such as ski racing subject the hand and lower arm of a wearer to violent contact with a hard object. For example, in ski racing the racer navigates a course between a series of upright posts or gates. To minimize the path travelled and thus the time for running a race course skiers take a path which is as close to the gates with their skis as possible. An accepted technique for skiing gates is to swing the inside arm against the vertical pole of a gate while skiing past the gate to provide the shortest path around the gate and prepare for the next turn. This has the effect of causing the skier's hand and/or lower arm to repeatedly bang into the gates as the skier covers the course. The forces involved can be rather dangerous as the skier reaches high speeds of between 30 and 70 m.p.h. depending upon whether the race is a slalom, giant slalom or downhill type race.
As a result, there is a need for protection on the hand and lower arm of a ski racer. There are ski racing gloves available which utilize padding of different types where the padding is affixed to the glove at the location where padding is needed. However, this fixed padding tends to seriously restrict the flexibility of the wearer's fingers, hand and wrist which are essential in sporting endeavors such as ski racing. In addition, this padding presents a bumpy exterior which is more likely to catch on a gate or other obstruction and which provides increased wind resistance.
There are protective gloves which utilize discrete protective padding fixed in place, but separated to allow flexibility. However, this type of protective device sacrifices protection in the knuckle area in favor of flexibility.
Accordingly, there is a need for a protective glove which protects the wearer's hand or hand and lower arm from injury and pain from violent contact while providing for significant flexibility of the hands and wrist.